China to construct five modern community technical colleges in Malawi

The People’s Republic of China will construct five modern community technical colleges to the tune of 100 million Chinese Yuan Renminbi.

Exchange of documents by Ministry of Labour and Chinese after the signing ceremony

This was disclosed on Monday during the signing ceremony of the implementation agreement for the China-aided project of Malawi community technical college in Lilongwe.

Speaking at the ceremony, Minister of Labour, Youth, Sports and Manpower Development, Francis Kasaila said government appreciates the support the Chinese government is providing to the country in many sectors of the economy and specifically on flagship program of community technical colleges.

“As you may be aware that more than 70 percent of our population is the youth and as such our general purpose is to see a lot of youth graduating each year,” he said

Kasaila added that statistics show that every year about 150,000 students graduate from secondary schools and less than 10 percent find space into tertiary education institutions.

“It is for this reason that government has put skills development as priority to ensure that youth acquire survival skills. For Malawi to develop economically we need to have adequate skilled labour force on the ground,” the minister explained.

He added that it is gratifying to note that the Chinese government decided to support this home grown initiative.

“True friendship is all about complementing each other’s effort. This ceremony is cementing the agreement between the two governments and I know there are outstanding assignments that we need to do to make sure that construction works of the community technical colleges commence at the scheduled time,” Kasaila said.

Chinese Ambassador Shi Ting Wang said manpower development holds the key to the country’s development.

“Malawi lacks high-standard technical colleges that can boost socio-economic development in the country, the crucial fact is that youth unemployment is much higher than the country’s average level,” he said.

Wang stated that the youth are eager for technical trainings but they are in need of professional and technical skills that can help them contribute more to the future of this country and improve their own self-development,

The five modern community technical colleges will be constructed in Ntcheu, Mulanje, Mzimba, Nsanje and Zomba.